Following February’s release of his album Internet Killed the Rockstar, featuring the hit Avril Lavigne collaboration “Flames,” Mod Sun is keeping the fresh tunes flowing, with “Heavy.”

The new track, which was recorded alongside longtime friend blackbear, reflects Mod’s emotional and physical state as he was getting clean from hard drugs and alcohol.

“Internally, there was a lot of parts of me that felt like a bunch of rubber bands holding together like [a fist], and all of your insides being pulled to the center into this rubber band ball,” he tells ABC Audio.

Lyrically, “Heavy” uses language of an ending relationship as a “metaphor [for] moving on from something toxic.”

“Whether that be depicted in the song through a relationship or that be personally me moving on from drugs and alcohol, I think they both kinda danced and lived in the same world,” Mod explains.

From the musical side, “Heavy” doesn’t sound too much like “Flames.” But if you listen to Internet Killed the Rockstar, you’ll find similar-sounding songs in “Smith” and “Rollercoaster,” which are about the death of Mod’s father and his journey to sobriety, respectively.

As Mod explains, he finds himself experimenting more sonically when he’s writing more personal songs in the “world of vulnerability.”

“When we’re writing from that standpoint, I think you have to really, really dig deep to find something that makes you feel uncomfortable,” he says.

For a song like “Heavy,” Mod wanted something different from the “visceral” pop-punk palm mutes that keep you “staying in this world.”

“When you make these sonic landscapes that you can close your eyes and you’re, like, not here anymore, I think I feel more fearless and more comfortable to do the things I fear and am uncomfortable with,” he says. 

“Heavy” is out now.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

By Josh Johnson
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